Delicious AfterDark 2016 - dinner and tours at the Australian National Botanic Gardens

The Australian National Botanic Gardens knows how to make the most of summer. There's the Summer Sounds concerts, where Canberrans fill the eucalypt lawns, relaxing on picnic blankets to the sound of jazz and contemporary music. And then there are the AfterDark tours - where rangers guide you through the glowing rainforest gully and through to the red centre garden.

The Delicious AfterDark tours are adults-only. You get eight courses of native spice inspired canapes, with three matched wines from a Canberra winemaker, seated on the deck outside the gardens cafe, overlooking the lawn and with a view of sunset through the trees.

We attended the first dinner of the season on January 15 as guests of the gardens. The evening is cool but still bright, and white draped tables are arranged on the cafe deck. Guests sip glasses of Long Rail Gully riesling with fresh Clyde River oysters and a citrussy champagne dressing, followed by filo pastries filled with fetta, local honey and a native plum relish. With a summery, deep blush-coloured rose, there are Asian prawn and rice paper rolls; plates of zucchini fritters with a tart-and-bitter finger lime pickle.

The Long Rail Gully shiraz is matched to meatier canapes such as rare roast beef wrapped around some buffalo mozzarella and beetroot, which are good morsels to anchor the meal as the sun finally goes down. It wraps up with a tray of pretty chocolate and strawberry tarts before a night-time tour of the gardens, guided by rangers and lit by the coloured lamps which lend an air of magic to the rainforest gully and the sparse red centre garden.

The Delicious AfterDark dinner tours run on January 29, February 12, March 4 and March 11 at Australian National Botanic Gardens. 7pm. $70. See anbg.gov.au/gardens/whatson